December 2022 Un-Challenge: (No more) New Year's Resolutions

[szaza]

Wow some amazing pretty soaps have been made this month!

@Cindy D. I love your landscape soap just the way it is! It's beautiful and especially impressive for a first try

@Catscankim 3 beautiful soaps! And bonus points for a beautifully staged picture

@Mobjack Bay those soaps look like they'll have beautiful silky lather.. I wish I could try them!

@McKherring Farm that's such a pretty swirly soap

 

[AliOop]

Pardon the smears; I had to cut these while they were still soft since I only had a narrow window of open time. Although my red turned kind of mauve, this is the best pull-through result I've ever gotten as far as patterns go. I may try it again soon! Thanks @szaza for a fun Unchallenge!

 

[dmcgee5034]

Your soaps are so beautiful @Mobjack Bay

@McKherring Farm - lovely lavenders from top to bottom!

Pardon the smears; I had to cut these while they were still soft since I only had a narrow window of open time. Although my red turned kind of mauve, this is the best pull-through result I've ever gotten as far as patterns go. I may try it again soon! Thanks @szaza for a fun Unchallenge!
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Ohhh @AliOop, those are beautiful!! I love the colors! Your patterns are awesome!

 

[Paulie]

Pardon the smears; I had to cut these while they were still soft since I only had a narrow window of open time. Although my red turned kind of mauve, this is the best pull-through result I've ever gotten as far as patterns go. I may try it again soon! Thanks @szaza for a fun Unchallenge!
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I love how the red is kinda rustic, It looks like a barnyard red to me, my favorite.

My biggest problem is packaging and photographing my soap. So I am happy that I actually got to take a picture tonight LOL. I'd probably be a millionaire if I just got around to taking pictures of all of my soap.

Anyway, for the December un-challenge, I am presenting three of my soaps that I made this month.

On the left is au naturale Oatmeal, Goats Milk and Honey soap (love the smell of it with no scent). 100% full water replacement with goat's milk.

On the right is last nights cut, which is Ophelia's Butter Bar, very lightly scented with coconut FO from CC. I haven't trimmed it yet. not sure if I will except for some buffing. No colorants, only kaolin clay if you consider that a colorant. The last time I made it, it had a translucent look about it, so that's why I added the clay.

And in the middle is my piece de resistance: "The Resolvable Owl", drop swirl scented with The Grim Reaper from NS. I was going for a slightly different look, it was supposed to be paisely. I should have reserved more white, so I got too much color. I don't dislike it, it is just not the look I was going for.

Sorry about the soap crumbs on the lazy susan lol. I saw them after I already put everything back to bed. I wasn't in the mood to redo the scene LOL.

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They are all beautiful!

For this month’s Un-Challenge, I made a variation of @Dawni ‘s Triple Rice Soap (DTRS). Dawni made her soap using a hot process technique with a lard-based recipe. Others, such as @Misschief, make cold process recipes. My cold process recipe included 15% rice bran oil, 5% cooked rice slurry and 1% sweet rice flour blended into the oils, and rice rinse water for the split water to go along with master-batched lye and the rice slurry. The soap is lightly scented with lavandin with hints of eucalyptus, peppermint and amyris. The color is mostly from the unrefined shea and possibly the RBO since no other colorants were added. I‘ve had the sweet rice flour sitting around for at least a year, so a big thank you goes to @szaza for inspiring me to finally make the soap for this fun un-challenge!


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These are beautiful, love the color, so natural.

 

[Servant4Christ]

My first time trying a scene using scrapers. What it was supposed to look like.
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What it actually looks like. View attachment 70235
I intended for the colors to change a lot more gradually, but I miss judged the amount of batter needed and then one pot that I didn't stir set up, so it was hard to get it mixed into the sky good. I'd like to try again but use squeeze bottles for the sky and maybe the trees at the bottom. After seeing the blue on top, it just didn't make me happy, so I took a veggy peeler and shaved most of it off. I like the mountains, Judy with the black was a little more gradual.

I can dream up that type of soap, but never in a million years could I make anything resembling it IRL! Congrats!

My biggest problem is packaging and photographing my soap. So I am happy that I actually got to take a picture tonight LOL. I'd probably be a millionaire if I just got around to taking pictures of all of my soap.

Anyway, for the December un-challenge, I am presenting three of my soaps that I made this month.

On the left is au naturale Oatmeal, Goats Milk and Honey soap (love the smell of it with no scent). 100% full water replacement with goat's milk.

On the right is last nights cut, which is Ophelia's Butter Bar, very lightly scented with coconut FO from CC. I haven't trimmed it yet. not sure if I will except for some buffing. No colorants, only kaolin clay if you consider that a colorant. The last time I made it, it had a translucent look about it, so that's why I added the clay.

And in the middle is my piece de resistance: "The Resolvable Owl", drop swirl scented with The Grim Reaper from NS. I was going for a slightly different look, it was supposed to be paisely. I should have reserved more white, so I got too much color. I don't dislike it, it is just not the look I was going for.

Sorry about the soap crumbs on the lazy susan lol. I saw them after I already put everything back to bed. I wasn't in the mood to redo the scene LOL.

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Is there a tutorial on here for learning how to make that middle one? That's incredible!

@czaza Thank you for creating this un-challenge thread. It's been the motivation I needed to try and even fail at new things I was gun-shy about and I've learned so much along the way.

My first attempt at the Ciaglia method. It's not pretty, but I sure learned a lot. I like this rebatch method way better than the old-school double boiler on the stovetop method I've used in the past. I also now know that I love freezer paper vs parchment paper for lining molds.

 

[McKherring Farm]

Pardon the smears; I had to cut these while they were still soft since I only had a narrow window of open time. Although my red turned kind of mauve, this is the best pull-through result I've ever gotten as far as patterns go. I may try it again soon! Thanks @szaza for a fun Unchallenge!
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I had to order that tool tonight! I can't wait to play with it. It's my new personal Unchallenge. Love getting new ideas from you guys. Thank you!

 

[szaza]

@AliOop those are gorgeous and I love the shade of red you got!

@Servant4Christ I'm so glad this un-challenge motivated you to explore more soapmaking techniques! Your soaps all look wonderful

 

[dmcgee5034]

@Servant4Christ - beautiful! That is on my list to tackle.

 

[Catscankim]

@Servant4Christ It is a drop swirl. I was going for THIS color scheme, not necessarily that particular tutorial though. There are better ones out there if you look on you tube.

You almost can't mess it up. Start out with half of the mold filled with your base color, split the rest into as many colors as you like. Pour a line of soap in alternating colors back and forth length wise at various heights.

It is fun to cut...you never know exactly what you are going to get LOL

 

[Ladka]

Catscankim, thank you for your brief explanation.
I wonder if the batter should be just at thin emulsion or should it be thicker?

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Catscankim, thank you for your brief explanation.
I wonder if the batter should be just at thin emulsion or should it be thicker?

Here’s a good thread with tips on how to make a drop swirl.

@AliOop well done on the kaleidoscope soap. I love the colors.

@Servant4Christ The ciaglia soaps look great.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

The January 2023 Challenge is now posted, here.

 

[Cindy D.]

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Wow, those came out beautiful!

 

[AliOop]

Wow, those came out beautiful!

Thank you